Sherlock: Detective of Dance
by RosemaryJohnSherlock
Summary: Sherlock is forced to learn ballet to make friends. Dancelock/Kidlock. One shot, cute and fluffy for all ages.


Author's Note: Take two: Enjoy!

* * *

Sherlock: Detective of Dance

A tall ten year old boy sat on top of his mother's desk and kicked his legs back and forth. His dark curls sprung wildly from his head, and his grey eyes glinted with intelligence.

"But Mummy…" He whined, causing the woman to look up. Her hair was the same color as her younger son's, but it lacked the springs of coiled hair. Her eyes were a light blue, but they too held an intelligent spark.

"Sherlock, we've talked about this. You need to make friends-" His mother started again wearily, before he interrupted her.

"I don't need _friends_ and certainly no one I'd meet there would be acceptable anyway." He huffed, crossing his arms. His mother chuckled.

"I live for the day when someone else has to endure your pouting, Sherlock." She mused, ruffling his hair playfully before turning back to her equations. Sherlock looked down at the numbers and Greek letters all jumbled together on the page. He understood most of it by age ten, but despite this he still felt irritation at his own ignorance. His mother seemed to sense his frustration.

"I'll make you a deal. If you don't make any friends within the first three weeks, I'll let you choose something else." She looked at her son and smiled as he adopted his thinking pose of steepled fingers.

"Within the first _two_ weeks." He countered. She pretended to consider it. Sherlock began to bounce slightly in anticipation.

"Alright. First two weeks. And Sherlock-" She had to raise her voice a bit to be heard over his triumphant shouting as he leapt from the desk. "Do try to make friends, for me."

Sherlock went over and kissed his mother's cheek.

"I promise, Mummy." He said and she smiled brightly.

"Now will you explain the equation to me?" He asked hopefully. His mother nodded and Sherlock eagerly resumed his perch on the desk.

* * *

"Mummy." Mycroft called up the stairs, but no one answered. He sighed. He went up to the second floor as fast as he could without getting winded. He found his mother and younger brother talking animatedly over a whiteboard filled with a fairly simple series of equations. Mycroft rolled his eyes. Maths was so easy to him it was utterly dull.

"Mummy, I'm going to be late for fencing." He said from the doorway, tapping his finger on his watch. His mother looked from him to the clock on her wall.

"Oh, Mycroft, you're right. Sherlock, get changed or you'll be late as well. Hurry along." She nudged him away from the board and he frowned.

"Have fun in your leotard." Mycroft whispered as his younger brother walked past him. Sherlock kept walking, knowing that he'd promised to try.

Dance lessons. Completely idiotic. Sherlock had been signed up for an older child beginner ballet class. He hoped that meant he would only have to endure morons his own age. Any younger and he would be forced to take drastic measures.

His mother had done it in an effort to socialize him. She was constantly worried by the fact that he had no friends besides his seventeen year old brother Mycroft. She fretted that when Mycroft left for university, Sherlock would be terribly lonely. Sherlock was fairly certain that Mycroft was somehow responsible for this idea taking root in his mother's mind.

Sherlock and Mycroft sat in the back as their father drove them to the studio. His mother was in the passenger seat, scribbling in a notebook she had brought with her. It was often hard for her to focus when she was working on a particularly interesting problem.

"We're here." His father chirped happily; he had no quarrel with Sherlock's forced hobby, he thought it was a wonderful opportunity.

"Never would've realized that, thank you." Sherlock replied sarcastically, throwing in an eye roll for good measure.

"Sherlock." His mother warned, and Sherlock muttered an apology to his father.

"It's alright lad. I expect you aren't nervous?" he quirked an eyebrow and chuckled at Sherlock's slightly reddening cheeks.

"No, why would I be?" Sherlock muttered bitterly, ashamed to have been caught.

"Do you want us to walk you in?" His mother asked hopefully.

"_No."_ Sherlock said quickly, causing his parents to exchange knowing smiles.

"Okay, dear, we'll be back to pick you up when Mycroft is done. Have fun." His mother called as Sherlock escaped out the side door. He waved goodbye before hustling into the building.

The lobby was crammed with little girls donned in every shade of pink imaginable. Most had matching bags accompanying their ensembles. Sherlock tried not to cringe. He placed his own small bag next to him and removed his coat.

He looked down at his own outfit self-consciously. The black cloth shoes felt tight. His leotard seemed never-ending. They had been forced to order it from a special shop that specialized in tall youth sporting equipment. He found it demeaning. He had managed to convince his mother to dress him in all black, but instead of making the tights and leotard more bearable as he thought it would, he imagined it made him look more feminine. His skin positively glowed in contrast.

A few girls noticed him and giggled. He pulled a book from his bag and began to read. He glanced up when the giggles grew closer in proximity.

A girl only a tad shorter than he was eyed him cruelly. She had coco brown skin and her coppery hair was pulled back in a tight and painful looking bun. Her leotard was sans tutu, and the fabric was a light shade of lavender. She sneered at him, the dark freckles on her face contorting grotesquely. He sighed and put down his book.

"Hey, weirdo." She greeted him. "Where's _your_ bun?" She tugged at a curl that stood at attention on his head.

"I do not require one." He replied, reaching for his book again. The movement caught the girl's attention and she snatched it.

"Are you reading about dead bodies?" She asked, flipping through the pages.

"Obviously." Sherlock said dryly.

"Freak." She muttered, before tossing his book in the rubbish bin. She and her cronies turned and left the lobby. He cast a glare after them before going to the bin.

He found a head of blond hair already bent over it, extracting the book from assorted worn out shoes and empty hairspray bottles.

"Here." The boy offered him the book, then winced slightly. Sherlock took it and the boy rubbed his shoulder carefully.

"Probably shouldn't have done that." The boy muttered and Sherlock snorted.

"Of course not. You aggravated the muscle which is still recovering from the stab wound you received earlier this month. It can't have been long ago since you forgot about it in order to help me." Sherlock stopped talking as he saw the shock on the boy's face. He stuffed the book in his bag and hurried into the studio.

He threw his bag among the others and took in his surroundings. The girls erupted into giggles at his gothic attire and Sherlock wondered about how to escape. He studied the mirror at the front of the room, surmising that shattering the glass might get him into more trouble than he wanted. He sighed and went to stand by the bar that jutted half a foot from the wall. He didn't know what it was used for, but maybe he could use it to knock himself unconscious and get out of this class.

He heard laughter coming from his left. He looked up to find a boy, _the _boy, smiling at him. Sherlock noticed that he was the only other boy in the room.

"What?" Sherlock asked. At ten, he hadn't quite mastered holding onto his vocabulary skills while he was angry.

"You said you'd like to hit your head on the bar to get out of class. It sounded like a good plan." The boy replied, walking over to stand next to Sherlock.

"I'm John by the way." He stuck out a hand, then winced. He rubbed his shoulder and sighed.

"You should stop doing that." Sherlock said, causing John to snort in derision.

"Obviously." Sherlock looked insulted and John back-peddled. "I'm not used to it is all. You were right when you said it was recent. How did you know, anyway?" The boy, John, tilted his head questioningly.

"I didn't know, I saw." John still looked skeptical. Sherlock elaborated. "I could tell by the way you keep trying to use the arm. You aren't used to it not working well. From that I understand that it was your dominate arm. I can tell that your shoulder was stabbed by the scar poking from your leotard." Sherlock pointed and John attempted to stretch the material over the raised pink flesh.

"I used to take fencing, but there was a bit of an accident with a sword and I didn't have padding on. The doctors said that ballet would be good as physical therapy." John rolled his eyes and Sherlock gave him a look that said '_Obviously_'. John glanced over at the group of chatting girls and grimaced.

"If one more girl asks to see my scar, _I'm _going to whack my head on this stick." Sherlock laughed and John's blue eyes twinkled.

"It's called a bar, John." Sherlock corrected. John smiled a bit.

"You seem keen all of a sudden." John commented and Sherlock mimed striking his own head.

"Hardly. My mum made me come here to make friends." Sherlock sighed and John sniggered.

"Was she trying to get you a _girl_ friend?" John joked.

"I told her that girls would be more likely to attend a ballet class, but my older brother convinced her that this would work." Sherlock huffed in frustration.

"Well, I suppose it did." John said, and Sherlock didn't have time to process this because the teacher, a young woman in her twenties, called the class to order at that moment.

* * *

"And one and two. And one and two. Oh, excellent Sherlock!" She cried as the boy executed a perfect grand jeté. All the girls in the class glowered at him. John grinned from his spot in the corner. His leg had cramped up again, so he was merely observing. He watched in awe as Sherlock leapt amazingly high. He looked as if he were flying.

Sherlock certainly _felt_ that way. Instead of tall and gangly, he was enjoying the sensation of being graceful.His long limbs seemed to want to comply with his will, as long as they were preforming any of the artful steps. Sherlock learned to plié and pirouette with ease. His mind even quieted as he focused on getting his limbs to follow the steps.

All too soon, the hour of peace ended. The girls curtseyed to the instructor while Sherlock and John bowed. She smiled at all of them.

"Thank you, children. You are dismissed." She waved them into the lobby. John clapped Sherlock on the back with his good arm as they left.

"Brilliant, mate. You're a natural." He smiled and Sherlock judged that the boy was being sincere. He smiled back.

"You were good too." Sherlock offered and John laughed.

"I'm sure," Was his sarcastic reply.

"Did you mean it?" Sherlock asked tentatively, his grey eyes boring into John's blue ones. "When you said we were friends?"

"Of course I did. I couldn't have survived that without you." John replied, gesturing to the group of girls whispering conspiratorially and glancing at them every few seconds. He gave a mock shudder and Sherlock smiled.

"They are pretty dreadful." He added, causing John to grin at him.

Sherlock's mother arrived then, with Mycroft in tow. The smirk was already on his face.

"How was it, Sherlock?" She asked, hugging him. "If it was really awful, we can put you in the fencing academy like you wanted…" She trailed off and Sherlock glanced at the fencing academy across the street, a place he would've killed to be at this morning. He glanced at John and shook his head.

"No thanks, Mum. I think I'll stay." Sherlock smiled a bit and John returned it in full force. Mrs. Holmes clapped her hands with glee after releasing her son.

"Wonderful, Sherlock. I'm so happy. So, are you going to introduce me to this nice young man?" She glanced appreciatively at John.

"Mum." Sherlock said, turning red.

"And you worried that you'd be the only boy." She reminded him.

"_Mum_." Sherlock repeated with more enthusiasm. John smiled and offered his hand to Mrs. Holmes.

"I'm Sherlock's friend John. John Watson." He added. Mrs. Holmes' grin widened.

"Lovely to meet you, dear. I do hope you'll stay in the class as well." John gave Sherlock a cryptic wink before replying.

"I have a feeling I'll stick by Sherlock for a while." The blond boy smiled and Sherlock found himself grinning back, despite his embarrassment at his mother's actions.

Maybe having a friend could be fun…


End file.
